Some 19,000 people partici­pated May 6 in GiveNOLA Day, greater New Orleans' first-ever 24-hour online giving marathon, raising close to $2.3 million for our region's charities. Organized by the Greater New Orleans Foundation, this was not your typical fundraiser. People from 48 states and the District of Columbia visited the GiveNO­LA. org website to show their appreciation for the more than 300 nonprofit organizations that had registered to participate.

These organizations held events all over New Orleans and neighboring parishes to introduce donors to their work and encourage them to give. They competed against one another for cash prizes award­ed for the most money raised and the largest number of donors contributing. Around 1 p.m., people's eyes were glued to a gigantic "leaderboard" in Lafayette Square that counted down the remaining hours and minutes while the total amount raised inched toward $1 mil­lion. What jubilation when we reached that goal and pressed onward to $2 million.

There was also, I believe, something sacred about the day. Not only did it honor the incredible generosity of so many, it also united tens of thousands of people in our region and beyond in a great purpose. We've experienced this sense of shared purpose before, when, for example, so many sacrificed so much to save their neighbors, their neigh­borhoods and their city in the aftermath of Katrina. Last Tuesday we got to experience the big-heartedness of our peo­ple and the kindness of many strangers who loved this place enough to give part of their wealth to improve the quality of life for us all.

Why are the organizations that we supported on May 6 so important? We would miss them if they were gone. Imag­ine our community without its orchestra or its ballet. Imag­ine all our community health centers here one day and gone the next. What if there were no shelters for our homeless, no food pantries for our most vulnerable neighbors, no job training programs, or pro­grams for youth, or museums, or zoos? It would be as if the heart had been ripped from the body of our community.

So a million thank yous to GiveNOLA's generous donors and its sponsors. We look for­ward to doing this again next year, with an even broader array of nonprofit organiza­tions, once again demonstrating to the world what a giving kind of people we are.